Tongue-in-Cheek Cat Picture

There seems to be an unwritten rule that if you knit, you must have a cat. I probably would have a cat, but my husband doesn't like cats. He's like a cat himself: doesn't like to get wet, wrinkles up his forehead when angry. Doesn't tolerate other cats.

So when our son wanted a cat for Christmas, here is what he found in his stocking:
A cat that even my husband agreed was the perfect cat for our household, tolerant of squeezing and cuddling, exceptionally clean, and unafraid of dogs (even 111 lb. ones).

What's more, a cat that can sit in my lap, when my son wants it to, and never once hook a claw into my tatting or knitting! Doesn't he have a pretty coat and an alert expression?

I only got a few more rows of the graphed cloth knitted last night, as we went to town to buy "real" paving stones for the path to our door, to replace the used chimney bricks that make up the path right now. The chimney bricks did a good job of keeping sand outdoors, but they are not frostproof. So every spring a couple of bricks spalled into tiny pieces. Last year I picked out bits of broken brick and replaced them with unbroken ones, but this year we will be using real pavers.

My husband told me I could go buy them by myself. I called the store to make sure they were in stock, and was told they weighed about 42 pounds apiece! 18 pavers X 42 = 756 pounds. Hmmmm.

I told my husband we would be going together, with the trailer. Add the edging bricks (12 X 19 pounds each) and we lifted nearly half a ton, first onto the cart in the store, and again into the trailer. (We didn't unload the trailer last night -- just enough to lift it off the trailer hitch.)

As long as we were in town, I took a Hobby Lobby 40% off coupon and bought a set of US size 4 dpns. In the front of the store was a poster about a sock knitting class, but I found no sock yarn of any brand in the yarn bins. No Bernat Sox, no Lion Brand Magic Stripes, nuthin'!

I wonder how they plan to teach a sock class when they don't sell any sock yarn. "Bring Your Own Yarn"? To a chain craft store?

Yesterday I wrote about the fog. When I drove to school to pick up our son, I saw one of those weird and mysterious things I love about living here. Fog was rising in billows and tendrils from all of the dark, plowed fields. I listened for the eerie music, but only heard it in my mind's ear.